Thursday, September 14, 2017

The Ties that Bind

Hey there, YGO Community,Remember when I said I was going to try to post more? Sorry about that. I kind of lost my enthusiasm for the game for a while late last year and it just recently came back in the past few weeks. I think I got kind of burnt out and got tired of losing or being mad when I lost. In my absence, I've been playing a lot of Overwatch and going to the gym 4 days a week. I actually played only my 2nd regional of the year, last weekend in Philly. I played Trickstar and did better than I had anticipated at 6-3, but missing my invite because I punted a match and probably could have played better in general. I'm not sure how frequently this blog is going to be back, because of the aforementioned other hobbies, but, you're not here for any of that, so, anyway, I'm back for this week at least. This week's post will likely be a short one because I'm a day late to cover Super Agent's spike and Diagram's price tank combined with the fact that I only have one card to talk about as a pick-up and only two whose spike you might not be aware of.Ties of the Brethren- This week's spec card was only ever printed in the Legendary Decks II set that very few players, outside of the most casual bought. This card is still sub-$6 and that blows my mind since we have the release of the Counter Fairy structure deck slated for either late this year or early next year. I've always liked this card but I was trying to play it in some kind of Thunder Stun deck with Thunder King Rai-Oh, Denko Sekka, and Zap Mustang. The Fairy deck uses it so summon the board of Honest, Bountiful Artemis, and Barrier Statue of the Heavens to try to stop their opponent from doing things. They can't special summon monsters, except for Light monsters, you draw cards when you use a counter trap, and you have Honest because the deck's weakness is being run over by bigger, better monsters. If the card doesn't get a reprint in the deck, and this deck is a tier-1 strategy, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see this card double if not triple in price overnight. If you have a few extra bucks lying around, I'd recommend picking up your set now.Van'Dalgyon, the Dark Dragon Lord- The Secret Rare copies of this card are nearly nonexistent on TCGPlayer, with only two listings available, and none of them for NM copies. These copies drying up probably has something to do with the release of the Counter Fairy deck I mentioned. People always want the highest rarity option for their 1-of's and this is likely going to be no exception. With there being no NM copies available, it's really a seller's market and I imagine the next few listed will be $10+ as people look to flip them immediately. If you have one and want to play the deck, keep it. Otherwise, try to make a few quick bucks.Machine Duplication - By now, I'm sure you've seen much of the Spyral stuff skyrocket in price in anticipation of the deck becoming more powerful with the upcoming Forbidden & Limited list. We don't currently know out next list, but the OCG list absolutely cleft the meta in twain, taking every meta-relevant deck down a notch and, accidentally, making Spyral a very powerful contender. As people get more and more familiar with the deck, they keep discovering combos and Machine Duplication is involved in at least one of them, plus is just a great value card even if you don't open some nuts combo. The Super Rare copies are $7+, while Ultimate Rare copies are nonexistent in NM, and the lowest LP copy is nearly $30. I'm obviously a seller at this price point, but this is a card that goes through the roof every few years, and the set is only getting older, so this card is only getting harder to find in decent shape.I hope you all had some fun reading this week and I hope to keep bringing you guys content when I'm able or I get a hot tip about something.Have a card that you think deserves some consideration?Hit me up via social media to let me know. If I write about it, I'll drop you some credit in the article.

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